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So Ice stepped back and carefully closed the door, exhaling when he saw how the tinted glass made it difficult to tell at a glance that the passenger was wrapped in duct-tape instead of a seatbelt. He scanned the street once more, grateful to every god he could name that it was somehow still empty.
Then he was in the driver’s seat, reaching under the dash, pulling open the plastic cover beneath the steering-wheel console, finding the wires he needed, crossing them as he pressed the clutch and tapped the accelerator, heaving out a relieved sigh when the engine coughed and sputtered and then jolted to life.
He revved the engine and then let it run in neutral so it could charge the battery. He’d checked the fuel earlier, before selecting this car. Quick glance at the gauge told him he hadn’t been hallucinating earlier—there was enough to get them to the airport.
“Going to get us there as fast as I safely can,” he said to Indy while pulling open his phone and getting the clunky-but-adequate maps application running.
The route was a straight shot on a single highway once Ice got out of downtown South Mumbai. He studied the map to memorize it, using the hyper-focus of the drug to burn the route into his brain—which was already hardwired for mapping out a route in unfamiliar territory, thanks to relentless Delta training. It also helped that it was still relatively early in the day and traffic would be light. Ice had read that people started work late out here, which meant rush hour wouldn’t begin for another couple of hours.
He switched from the map to his messages, silently thanking Jack for thinking ahead and sending him an overhead satellite image of the Mumbai airport, a clumsily-drawn yellow circle marking the gate where Air India 217 would be boarding. It also showed the perimeter walls, with red circles marking out the guard stations. It would be Indian Army personnel manning those stations, and although a Delta man could sneak into Fort Knox in broad daylight, Ice had a squirming duct-taped piece of very precious carry-on baggage to consider. He wasn’t getting past armed guards at any of the gates lining the fenced-in perimeter.
He’d have to go over the fence.
But where?
Then Ice noticed the green arrow Jack had scrawled onto the image.
“Jackpot.” Ice grinned, nodding wildly when he saw that Jack had marked out the baggage-cart parking lot towards the back of the airport grounds, near a row of maintenance hangars. The parking lot had charging stations for the electric vehicles, and there were dozens of unused electric-powered baggage-trains lined up haphazardly. The area was along a high chain-link fence which Ice could probably get them over without being seen.
He’d have to, because there was no other option.
It occurred to him that the baggage-carts were also the only way Ice could get across the open airport grounds in daylight. No way he could simply walk all the way to the Air India 217 gate with Indy draped over his shoulder without getting arrested or perhaps just shot twice in the head, no questions asked.
Ice placed the flip-phone on the dash just in case, the maps application clearly visible because his pupils were so dilated they were letting in a wider spectrum of light. He glanced once more at Indy, who was still squirming, her eyes still frantic. She was breathing all right, and the duct-tape was holding her snugly in place. Ice’s heart wrenched when he imagined her state of mind, but there was nothing he could do right now except get them to the airport quickly and safely.
So he gunned the engine and pulled out, vision riveted on traffic and pedestrians, mind completely focused on the singular task of getting through the twisty crowded downtown streets onto the straight open highway, the yellow brick road that would lead them back to Kansas.
Or was it Wonderland.
Neverland?
Who the hell knew. He wasn’t a fairy-tale expert.
He shifted into third gear, then fourth, and before Ice knew it he was relaxing behind the wheel, decades of muscle-memory taking over as he turned and twisted through the cacophony of cars and trucks and scooters and rickshaws. Minutes later he saw the first signboards with smiling arrows pointing to the highway, and a few stop-lights later he was racing the engine and cruising along that yellow brick road that would hopefully lead them to Wonderland and not Neverland.
37
Forty-six minutes later a sign informed Ice that the he was exiting Neverland and approaching Wonderland. Or Kansas. Whatever. All he knew in his ultra-focused psychedelic stupor was that he’d just driven past a sign that said AIRPORT ARRIVALS.
“Please let this be real,” he muttered, driving past the DEPARTURES ramp, then taking a turn marked SERVICE ROAD, which should get him close to that spot in the fence Jack had marked with a green arrow.
Ice slowed down now, peering through the windscreen as the Honda trundled past boxy concrete buildings towards the fence beyond which lay the baggage-cart parking lot. He saw the lot, slowed down to a crawl, drove past the spot so he could get a lay of the land before circling back.
Security cameras were mounted on the fence at regular intervals, but only two were close enough to care about. Ice circled back to the right spot, then pulled off the road near a vacant lot which appeared to be rapidly transforming into an unofficial stray-dog shelter. He rumbled to a stop, scattering a handful of Mumbai’s ubiquitous strays who’d been lounging on the uneven scrubgrass-covered ground.
He glanced over at Indy, who’d stopped trying to break free but only because her muscles were probably aching from the effort. Her eyes were now glassy and distant. Wide open but also closed to the real world in a way that worried Ice.
“Almost there, Indy,” he said softly, reaching out and placing his palm gently against her cheek. She flinched wildly away from him, like his touch had seared her skin. Her eyes darted around like pinballs in her head before dimming to that terrifyingly vacant stare, and Ice knew he needed to hurry, needed to get her untied and safe in the belly of that plane.
So they could start the journey back.
Not just the physical journey back to the United States.
But also the mental journey back to sanity.
If that was even within reach for Indy anymore, Ice worried with rising anxiety, trying to force away alarming memories of what he’d read about LSD-trips gone bad, the mind-bending drug leaving unfortunate victims stranded far from the shores of sanity, their brains unable to find their way back to reality.
“I’ll be back,” Ice said, popping open his door, then getting out and circling around to the back of the vacant lot near the fence, trying to act casual just in case someone was actively watching these camera-feeds.